Beyond frustrated

I have lost track of the number of phone calls and the number of hours I have spent on the phone with tec support. I've had 3 "expert" techs remote into my computer system ( no one could fix the problem), 3 visits from an onsite technician, and all of the equipment - from the shield to the cable connectors changed (tria twice, modem twice, router and shield and connectors once), and I still can't stay connected. On Wednesday, last week, the tech requested escalation to engineering and for a wild blue engineer to come onsite. Hadn't heard back by Friday, so I called in. They said they scheduled someone for Monday this week. Monday comes. No one showed. I called. They said the appointment was cancelled because the same tech was assigned and he told them I needed an engineer. The support person I spoke with said the only way to get a wild blue engineer was to change my sales channel from perfect 10 (I don't even know who that is-I signed up through Johnston Communications) to WB Direct. She put in the request. About 9+ minutes ago, I get a call from Perfect 10. They want to schedule a tech for Friday. Told them it was supposed to be an engineer, she transfered me to excede customer service. I find out the request to change sales channels was denied. She has to put in another request to change sales channels. Another 3 day wait for that to go through. In the meantime, and since April 16, I can't do anything on the internet without getting losing the connection. I pay for 150 GB a month and can't use it because I can't stay connected. Speeds are amazing when it's connected. But after I'm on a website for a few minutes I get a connection error. I have to refresh over and over again to get the connection back. In yhe course of an hour, I can have 12+ mb downloads and connection errors a dozen times or more. I have from 15 to 100 percent packet loss per pingpath tests. Just completely sick of this mess. Someone please help.

When you have problems use your browser to go to 192.168.100.1 and check the status of your connection. If you can't get there problems are all on your end*. If you can get there and you see yellow dots in the modem page the problem is with exede equipment one way or another.

* Buy a USB/Ethernet network adapter dongle (about $10.00) and see what it does. Leave all settings at the default installed state. If it works then it is your computer's network adapter that is causing the problems (thus using another computer might work).

Thanks for the response and advice. All of that has already been done. And it doesn't explain why it happens on both computers and both phones in use in the house, or the same thing happening if a visitor drops by and attempts to use their device. Every device has a different OS. It also doesn't explain why I have totally unacceptable packet loss about 6 hops into a path ping. Or, why tech support, if I can catch them quickly enough, can't complete a speed test any better than I can. It's NOT my equipment and it's been admitted by more than one Exede employee and the tech who came to my house 3 times.

Oh, and if it were my network adapter, I wouldn't be able to hop onto a public hotspot or private network at someone else's house. I would also have the same problem when I tether my laptop to my phone using it as an access point so I can get and send emails.

Here is what just happened. I got screen shots to show you. I opened a modem screen. Green lights all the way across. I was watching the data exchange. Then it blinked out on me and came back on. This was just a few seconds apart. You'll also notice that sent packets are way higher than received packets for the usage since May 8. Totally abnormal behavior.

LOL. Actually, I think it has something to do with the modem firmware. There's no reason for uploading numbers to be higher than download numbers. About 12 percent of the data usage this month has been downloaded, the rest is being uploaded. It's really crazy.

Hi Lea, When is your issue occurring? From your explanation, it sounds like it is a capacity issue during the busy time on the internet.

Due to the nature of satellite-based internet service, there are many variables that can affect speeds, including, weather at ViaSat’s facilities or at the customer’s home, network congestion, a misconfigured home network or outdated computer equipment and software. Because of these many variables, ViaSat cannot guarantee any particular speed to you.

If more that one person is using the internet at the same time, the bandwidth is shared by each device equally and each one will get just their portion of the full capacity. This can created slow speeds and connectivity issues. Please send your account and contact information to exedelistens@viasat.com and we will review your account.

I will send that info to you, Diana. However, I will also tell you is every day, all day. Doesn't matter the time or weather conditions. If I'm on at 3 on the morning or 8 in the evening, or anytime in between. Doesn't matter if it is sunshine or rain. Right now, I had to switch to my phone's data, because I couldn't get online to check my email. And... I haven't always had this problem. It started about a month ago. My install was on October. I had a problem in November, and again in December, that were both fixed. Then It was clear sailing until the middle of April. There is a clear line of sight. No trees in the way. And, while using more than one device at a time will split the available bandwidth, it does not explain why even tech support cannot complete the speed tests from their end, if I can catch them while it's not working. There is only me in the house most of the time and I only use 1 or 2 devices at a time. Either way, I should not be going from above the contract speeds one second to nothing the next. Even if I could stay connected at slow speeds, it would be better than having to use my phone data to stay online.

Lea, I suggest you sign up for Easy Care if you haven't already and then ask for a service call. My first guess is you have an installation issue. Was your service call performed by the same person who installed it? If so, ask for a different tech. He may be missing the same thing over and over. It could be an honest mistake, incompetence, or covering up his errors. Post some pics on here showing ground location, printing on cable, connections, etc. and someone may see something.

Thanks for the response, Jim. No. The tech who was here was different than the installer. I already pay for Easy Care, too. I asked for a different tech, too. They keep assigning the same person because he's the only one in the area. I'll take some pics and upload when I can get to town and on a public Hotspot, maybe at the library. I don't want use up my phone data to post pictures, because I have to keep that on reserve for email, texting and such. They say I can't have a wild blue engineer come out because I'm on the wrong sales channel. Still waiting to see if that change request is going to be denied for a second time.

Oh, and a couple of other things that might help troubleshoot.... 1) this started right after a bad storm, 2) when I can't get online, the modern lights (all except for the power light) go crazy, as soon as theygo back to normal blinking, the connection comes back. It's as if it's trying to find something, searches frantically, then stops and repeats the process over. And over again. I'm wondering if it's trying to update firmware and can't, but phone techs and onsite technician have checked and say it's fine. Any ideas?

I called CS tonight to get a status check on my sales channel change. That finally went through. The level one tech was a bit confused about the difference between a wild blue engineer and a technician, so he sent me to level two tech. Level two tech went through all of the option and finally put me through to a floor supervisor.

As soon as I told him about the crazy blinking lights on my that boot me off the connections and the weird upload/download numbers, he said., "it's a network problem." He escalated it to network operations, on a priority one trouble ticket. He said 1-2 business days for them to run through troubleshooting procedures and they will call me directly or call him to set up a service call to fix or replace equipment, but it's definitely not on my side of the modem.

Shout out to everyone for suggestions and assistance. I'll let you all know what the results are.

I do have to say, it was great to talk with someone who listens and had a solid understanding of the technology in play - - so much so that it took all of 5 minutes for him to pinpoint that it was a network problem.

Have you called to follow up on the ticket they made? Once it goes to that team they do some really tedious stuff but sometimes if you call and reference the ticket they created (we can look it up if not) we can see the progress and update you

I did, Brad, at the end of every time frame they gave me. On my second call today, I talked to tier 2. They contacted network operations directly. Apparently, something is causing the tria to overheat and that is causing my inability to stay connected? I don't know. Anyway, they are supposed to come again on Friday and replace the tria for the third time. I don't know what good it will do, but I'll wait and see. Thanks for checking.

I see the software version under identification is UNDEFINED, so are the packets under Ethernet statistics.

Do you have your own router or the or the WiFi modem?If you have your own router, please connect directly to ONE computer with a cable and go to the modem page again. see if it can define those values without a router involve.

If so, then your router is a big part of the problem. If so, or if you have the WiFi modem, then it may be the modem itself.

If it is forever trying to download modem software because it does not know the version or, cannot report it, that MIGHT cause Tria heating as well as excess usage and, failure to connect properly.

If another technician comes out, make sure they explain those undefined values if they say that's okay. That does not look right to me.

Have you tried disconnecting everything except the modem, powering it off for five minutes then, powering it on and waiting until all but the bottom light are on properly before connecting anything to it?

Have you powercycled the modem while monitoring the modem status page to see where in the process it seems to have a problem?

Thanks, Bev. I'll ask the technician to do that. Everything on the system is new. If you look at my first post, I explained everything. And all of the power cycling and other tips have been done on multiple occasions. I also told the floor supervisor about what happens to the modem. When I can connect, the modem lights are normal. Then the lights will go crazy, like the modem is looking for something and it boots my connection. That's also when you see the undefined values. That's when he said he would send it to network operations. It makes perfect sense that the modem is trying to download software and as is continues to so, repeatedly, the tria would overheat. What doesn't make sense is that it's been doing it for a month and a half and I've already had two modem changes (so 3 in all) since this started; unless, the link to the software is somehow messed up, or the software file itself is corrupted on the server and the modem is unable to do the install.

Lea, I'm sorry this last attempt didn't work. I did remove a few posts, because I think it'll be better if you email me at exedelistens@viasat.com and I make a custom offer to you directly to settle this issue since problems continue and talking to our highest levels of support are proving to not fix the issue.